


I'm crawling on your shore

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, Post-Crooked Kingdom, Unresolved Sexual Tension, we have to get out of these wet clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 06:53:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8239994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: It's a good thing they're playing a long game.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Indigo Girls.

The important thing, Kaz thinks after they fish him out of the water, is that no one can tell how irrationally terrified he was. The slight shivers could be attributed to the dunking he'd taken in the harbor, rather than his horror at being submerged and almost drowned. By the time the fight is over and he's on the deck of The Wraith, he has it under control, though the cold night air is colder against wet skin and clothes. The sensation is nauseating, but he swallows it down and grits his teeth until business is handled. It takes more than an unexpected dip in the ocean to throw Kaz Brekker. At least, that's what he needs people to believe.

"Come on," Inej says when the excitement is over, her fingers a featherlight touch on his elbow. 

Maybe he should think of her as the captain now, maintain the distance between them, even in his mind, even now that the physical distance is minimal. She gives him a wry, unimpressed look, as if she knows what he's thinking, and leads him belowdecks to the captain's cabin.

It's small, but larger than the crew's bunks--most of them sleep in hammocks strung in the steerage--and it gives them a privacy he appreciates but isn't sure is smart. Her bed, neatly made and covered with a gray and black duvet embroidered with a crow, looms large. There's also a metal basin on a small table beside the bed and a small mirror hanging above it.

Inej is, of course, as steady at sea as she is everywhere else, but a rough swell makes Kaz stumble briefly even with his cane clutched tightly in his fist. Again, it's likely no one else would notice, but Inej always does. She steadies him with a hand on his arm. Good thing she's the only one there. Since she's been gone, he's been less distracted, more like his old self, but scant hours into this reunion and he's already contradicting himself thought by thought.

"That didn't go as planned," he says, his voice dry even if his clothes aren't.

"As _you_ planned, maybe," she answers with a small grin and hands him a towel from the bedside table. "Welcome aboard."

"Said the spider to the fly." The towel is rough but not threadbare; he rubs his hair so it stops dripping, and drapes the towel around his neck.

She laughs, and the sound warms him to his toes. "As if a mere spider's web could hold you, Kaz." She reaches into one of the drawers built underneath the bed and draws out some dark clothing. "Not up to your usual standards, but at least they're dry."

The clothes--a long-sleeved pullover and drawstring pants--are soft and smell like cedar, which is interesting, because most of the time, Inej seems to have no scent at all. He doesn't know how she does it. On rare occasions, he's caught the scent of rain in her hair or powdered sugar on her breath but no fragrance has ever announced her presence. Now, though, she smells like salt and tar and gunpowder. Like the captain of her own ship. His stomach clenches in something other than nausea at the thought of her scent clinging to his skin, and he grits his teeth against that, as well.

He strips off his sodden gloves and lays them aside on the one chair in the room; his ruined jacket follows. Inej moves towards the door but he stays her with an almost imperceptible shake of his head. She leans against the wall, hands tucked behind her. Her gaze never leaves his face.

His fingers are stiff and chilled, but he doesn't fumble his buttons. He holds her gaze, sees her throat move as he peels out of the shirt, and is glad he's never been the type to blush. He feels warmer already. His hands drop to his belt and her eyes widen but she doesn't flee as she might once have. Instead her chin comes up and her mouth quirks ever so slightly. Challenge accepted.

He suddenly imagines himself as the distressed damsel in some burlesque, and Inej as the roguish pirate captain come to ravish him. The thought is both ridiculous and appealing, and it makes dropping his trousers in front of her much easier than he'd have expected.

Her gaze is appraising, like a jeweler studying a gem, and he squares his shoulders, preening automatically under her regard. She bites her lip and he wonders if he's pushed too far, too fast. For her or for himself. Still, he won't back down, at least not while there's space between them. He can do this for show, even if he can't do it for real yet. Fake it till you make it, he tells himself ruefully.

"If I'd known you were going to give me a show, I'd have invited you aboard sooner." Her eyes are dark and intent, and there's a thread of something that might be desire beneath her amusement.

"Invited? Is that what you're calling it?"

She shrugs an insouciant shoulder. "Kidnapped is such an ugly word."

"And not really fitting." He wants to be here, even if he hadn't planned on it. "If it's a show you want, I'll give you one you won't soon forget." He doesn't mean to sound quite so predatory. Or maybe he does. He hooks his thumbs in the waistband of his underwear, and raises his eyebrows.

Inej makes a strangled noise and finally turns away.

He's won this round, though he's not sure he wanted to. It's a good thing they're playing a long game.

He gets his boots off--he hopes they're not ruined too; they'll be impossible to replace aboard ship--and slips into the borrowed clothes. They're too small across the shoulders and too short in the leg, but the material is soft and warm. He discovers a pair of socks in the pants pockets and pulls them on as well, grateful for the warmth against the cool wood floor.

"Are you decent?" she asks, her voice low and hoarse.

That makes his lips twitch. "I'm dressed, if that's what you mean."

She turns back to face him, smiling, and takes a step closer. She raises a hand slowly. He gives her a slight nod and she brushes invisible lint off his shoulder. "It's definitely a look."

He catches her wrist, earning a startled gasp that sends heat through him. He feels her pulse flutter beneath his fingertips for a few seconds--a reminder that she's alive, that he's here--before he has to let go. The nausea is still there, but so is the desire, grown stronger in the time they've been apart. He wants to believe the latter will outweigh the former, and sooner rather than later. Of course, this is the one thing that has never conformed to any of his plans. He'll just keep making new ones until it does.

Still, she gives him another smile he chooses to take as encouraging, then sits down and removes her boots and her frock coat. Underneath, she's wearing a voluminous white shirt that doubles as a nightgown. She slides her pants off without ever revealing anything he hasn't already seen. His mouth goes dry anyway.

"You can have the bed," she says, rebraiding her hair deftly. "I have to be up at five bells."

"Stay," he says, though he knows he shouldn't. The cabin is small and the bed even smaller.

"Kaz--"

He says it again. "Stay." He climbs into the bed and puts his back to the wall. The bedding smells like her and it sends another shiver of heat through him. There's enough space for her, if she settles her back to his chest. He has to take a deep breath to steady himself at the thought.

She gives him another long, assessing look and then sighs. "That is a terrible idea."

He doesn't think he's imagining the longing in her voice just because it's what he wants to hear. "It is, but when have we ever let that stop us?"

She laughs. "True." She sits on the edge of the bed and watches him for a moment, head cocked inquisitively, before reaching out slowly.

He draws another deep breath and braces himself for the light touch of her fingers on his jaw, the butterfly-wing brush of her thumb over his lips. He exhales shakily and licks at the spot she touched, imagining he can taste her. 

She leans back, her eyes heavy-lidded and dark as they hold his gaze. "Not tonight," she says, her voice quiet but firm, "but someday."

"Someday soon," he answers, just as firmly.

"I'm going to hold you to that, Kaz Brekker. One day, payment is going to come due."

"I wouldn't expect anything less." He grins, and it feels as genuine and as dangerous as any sharp-toothed smile he's worn on the street. Her answering grin is just as fierce and makes his heart race in his chest. "I always pay my debts." He takes her hand again, just to prove he can, and squeezes it once. She squeezes back. "The deal is the deal."

"The deal is the deal." She gets up and extinguishes the lamps and then curls up in the chair across from the bed. "Sleep, Kaz. We'll figure out how to get you back to Ketterdam in the morning."

He hums in response and waits until the sound of her breathing evens out before he opens his eyes. It's too dark to see anything but the bright white of her shirt, but he imagines the smooth dark skin of her legs, the curves and hollows of her ankles, calves, knees, and thighs. He falls asleep wondering what it will be like to touch her all over without any qualms at all.

He wakes at five bells to the hesitant brush of her fingers in his hair, smoothing it back so she can press a phantom kiss to his forehead. He smiles sleepily at her, and wonders for a moment if he's still dreaming.

"Go back to sleep," she says. "There's no work for you to do here."

He wants desperately to wrap an arm around her waist and pull her down into the bed with him, to follow through on the promises they made the night before, but he can't. Not yet. He nods once and she leaves.

He's Kaz Brekker; he always gets what he wants in the end. He promises himself this will be no different.

end


End file.
